Memory Avenue
by NeonHappiness
Summary: Rachel takes a look back and over on how much everyone in glee club has changed...including herself


It was Friday night, and once again, Rachel Berry found herself alone, in her room, going through past yearbooks. This week, she was browsing through the 3rd grade year book. It was pretty much a Rachel Berry tradition to go through her past memories of her school mates, every Friday night. But then again, things that people did in solitary usually didn't qualify to be "traditional", did they? The star studded student didn't know why she kept on doing this to herself. She had already had memorized every picture pasted in there, including the captions below them, She had for long known the cliques that were popular and in, and the ones that weren't. But the one reason that she kept repeating the same process at the beginning of every weekend was because she loved the feeling that flushed through her veins as she saw how much everybody had changed, for better or for worse.

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The first picture that Rachel had seen was a simple, yet complicated 3rd grade photo. The curly haired brunette remembered the exact moment, when the photo was taken, but little did many people know about all of the many memories the photo had captured with inside there. In the front row was a petite, Asian girl wearing a Snoopy t-shirt, a bright blue beanie, and a pair of light washed jeans with a small hole on the knees. The little girl was, squinting her eyes at the camera and was looking down at her black Converse high tops ever so slightly. Tina had always been the quiet girl in the corner of the picture, the one who had always tried to avoid the social world. The young girl had been smart to do that, because in the row behind her, was a special individual who had made a life changing choice because of the social world.

The boy who had made that choice was otherwise known as Kurt Hummel. The youthful fashion pupil was posed in the middle, popping his collar with one hand, and the other on his hip. Most of his classmates would say that it was destiny for him to be gay, but the truth was that he got so sickened of girls ogling over him, that he decided to put a complete stop to it. But in this pic. , he seemed like he was ignoring the girls resting their heads on Kurt's shoulder, pulling at his Robert Cavalli jacket, and what not. His hair was as unusual in a weird, yet refreshing way. It was his usual perfectly parted, combed, gelled, and shinning in the spring's sun, but just looked a lot more loose and free. He had a few strands of hair swept out of place, almost making his hair look air blown. Young Kurt surprisingly wasn't sporting his signature smirk, but had a large, closed mouth, smile plastered on his heart shaped face. Rachel gazed at the little kid, creating a Venn diagram in her head, comparing young Hummel to present day Kurt.

On the other side of the row was a girl, with big, blackish brown curls. Rachel immediately knew the glee member she was looking at. It was the one and only, infamous Mercedes Jones. She was still had that confident glow to her smile, and even back then, she had held her head high. Of course, her being younger, her sense of fashion hadn't really quite "blossomed" yet, like Kurt's had. Mercedes had been wearing a neon pink tank top, with a big polyester zebra print bow on the front of it. Rachel recalled how jealous she had been of that big bow… now she wondered why she had even looked at in the first place. Mercedes was wearing a pair of black denim Capri's with a rhinestone belt. You could tell all her attention was focused on the camera, and that she felt like the star she deserved to be.

Next was a boy sitting on the green grass, grasping a football. Rachel couldn't help but smile at the goofy smile that Finn had on his happy face, mainly because he still had a little bit of chocolate pudding on the corner of his mouth from snack time. He always had a thing for sweet things, huh? Mr. Hudson appeared as happy as can be. Rachel could only assume that Finn had slim to no expectations to live up to at this age that is if you were comparing it to his large social expectations now! Finn had looked so innocent and free willing. If anyone had changed that least, it would be Finn, by far. In a way, he kind of reminded Rachel of present day Arty, except that Arty is paraplegic and Finn never was and hopefully never will be. In the 3rd grade memoir, Arty was seemed casual, standing in the back row, grinning as big as possible. Even back then, Arty was the most optimistic kid in the grade. Looking back now on how Arty had been able to actually walk and jump around with his other classmates made Rachel do everything short of sobbing.

Finally, Rachel had calmed herself enough to the point where she was able to continue her adventure through the 3rd grade. But as she continued her stroll down memory lane, something had kept on biting her. She then realised that she was probably, no wait most definitely the only kid not in that picture, and Rachel Samantha Berry knew precisely why she had been absent the second they took snapped that amazing photo. She was at a dance recital, and now looking back, she wished that for once in her life she had missed a recital, and had gone to school on picture day like a normal kid. Sure it was only a single photo of a bunch of dysfunctional 3rd graders, but Rachel loathed being a not being able to be part of it. Rachel Berry's eyes over looked at the bottom of the picture, where the caption was located .Her eyes watered up the millisecond she read the words; Missing – Rachel Berry, Mr. Evanheart's class

Little did Rachel know, but she wasn't the only one looking at herself thinking "What the hell happened to me?" .Weather it was Artie looking down across the local park's pond, looking at his and his wheelchairs reflection, or Mercedes look up at the spotlight's shadow. It could be Finn, lost in his reflection he found in the locker-room mirror, or Kurt studying himself, in a family photo, taken in the year 2000. They all felt alone, changed, and different in a bad way. Wanna know why they all were feeling this? Because it's what other people around you can do to you. You can try and think that everyone loves you and that everything is perfect , but soon enough you're going to have to turn around, and face the fact that the world's social structure has completely changed you, no, re-created you. And all you could do was keep your head high and try to look forward to another day, and that was exactly what Rachel Berry was going to do.

Because inside her head, Rachel knew that at some point, Tina had been more shy and innocent. And Kurt had been the boy with real feelings of freedom. Mercedes had once not been a big, well that big of a diva. Arty had been able to be independent, and on his own. Finn had been a care free boy who had actual dreams. And that's all that mattered at the moment.

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